Sisters in Arms:

The Women who Flew in World War II

During WWII, a few carefully selected women in the United States and Great Britain were briefly given the unprecedented opportunity to fly military aircraft. In both the U.S. and the U.K., the women pilots joined auxiliary organizations, the WASP in the U.S. and the ATA in Britain. During nearly six years of service, the women of the ATA steadily won nearly all the privileges and status enjoyed by their male colleagues. Women in the ATA could and did have command authority over men. Most exceptionally for the time, women of the ATA were awarded equal pay for equal work. The American women pilots, in contrast, were expressly denied the same status, rank, privileges, pay and benefits of their male colleagues.

What accounts for this dramatic difference in the treatment of women pilots doing essentially the same job?This book seeks to answer that question.